De Dana Dan – Hindi Movie Review

In De Dana Dan Johnny Lever plays a hitman named Kala. He sits down in a coffee shop and introduces himself to someone: “hello, I’m Kala. The guys says: toh maine kab bola gora hai. This low-IQ, college canteen humour made me laugh, and it is as good as it gets in the film. The movie starts out funny but gradually becomes more and more exhausting. The film sticks to what seems to have become the standard formula for Bollywood comedies.

Nitin [Akshay Kumar] is a butler, cook, driver, watchman, gardener to a wealthy female industrialist [Archana Puran Singh] in Singapore. Like any young man, Nitin too dreams of a better life. He desperately wants to become rich and marry the love of his life, Anjali [Katrina Kaif], who supports him financially.
Ram [Suniel Shetty], Nitin’s best friend, also came to Singapore with the dream of striking it rich, but ended up a courier delivery man. He falls for Manpreet [Sameera Reddy], but her high society parents will never approve of marriage, not unless Ram has lots and lots of money.

In the midst of all this is Harbans [Paresh Rawal], a shrewd businessman, who’s looking for ways to multiply his income and avoid his debtors. He decides the best way would be to marry his son [Chunky Pandey] off to a girl whose parents can give him a large dowry. He is introduced to Manpreet’s parents at a function and is impressed by their social status. He introduces himself as a well-established businessman, impresses them and they decide to get Manpreet and Harbans’ son married.

With several factors working against them, Nitin and Ram soon reach a dead end in their relationships. When both receive ultimatums from their girlfriends, they realize that only a life of vice can help them out of their misery. They come up with an audacious plan to kidnap someone important and demand a ransom. The kidnapping goes awry and both hide at a local hotel while waiting for the ransom money. But misfortune is never far and the kidnapping spirals out of control. For remaining story please wat on screen

Many characters with different agendas get together in one location. What follows is misunderstood identities, slaps, Tom and Jerry style chases and cartoonish violence. You recall Daddy Cool, Do Knot Disturb, All the Best – De Dana Dan is one more from that school of laughter. Akshay Kumar, the reason this film got made, plays Nitin, a glorified servant who works for someone called Singapore’s Cruella de Ville, playted by Archana Puran Singh. The only thing she loves is money and her dog named Moolchand ji.

Some of this strictly low-brow humour is fun. Akshay, in full throttle, energises the lame scenes and keeps the momentum going for the first half. But in the second, he does a disappearing act. He gets shut in a cupboard and the film goes into free-fall. We see Shakti Kapoor attempting to bed Neha Duphia who in turn attempts to bed Vikram Gokhale.

Meanwhile, Johnny Lever is trying to kill the wrong man; lots of money is being tossed around in suitcases, everybody screams and there is a wedding in progress. The film gets more tedious as the plot gets more convoluted and by the climax, in which everyone floats around as the hotel gets flooded, I could barely keep my eyes open. The humour is so labored that I felt like someone was beating me to laugh. And I finally understood why the credits in many Priyadarshan films say filmed by Priyadarshan instead of directed by Priyadarshan.

Because there is little sense that someone is actually directing this circus. It feels like the actors are in a free-for all and a camera is filming the chaos.

Totally De-Dana-Dan – Expectation of satisfaction will be guaranteed